According to the flight controllers, all recent attempts to get telemetric data from the Progress spaceship have failed

Russia’s Mission Control Center

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. Russia’s Mission Control Center will take a new attempt to establish communication with the Progress M-27M spacecraft on its next orbit of the earth after 03:00 am, Moscow time, Wednesday. The cargo ship is currently out of radio range, a rocket and space industry source told TASS on Tuesday.

"The next attempts to make contact, if the coming one fails, will be taken only during the coming night," the source said.

According to the flight controllers, all recent attempts to get telemetric data from the Progress spaceship have failed.

He said the spacecraft makes one orbit of the earth in some 90 minutes - that is, 15 - 16 revolutions a day. Each revolution is made with a displacement that can be seen on the world map in the Mission Control Center as a shifting sine curve. Of 15 - 16 revolutions per day, only six are made within the zone of Russian ground communications means, and the rest orbits are outside the radio range. So, until 03:00 am, Wednesday, Russian specialists will not be able to establish contact with the spacecraft.

The Soyuz rocket with the cargo spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 10:09 am, Moscow time, before going into orbit around the earth. It should have docked to the International Space Station (ISS) at 16:07 pm, Moscow time, but technicians later discovered the antennas were not working properly. Two of the five antennas failed to deploy on the Progress M-27M spaceship.

The resupply vehicle was carrying about 2.5 tonnes of cargo, which also included a replica of the Victory Day banner. For unknown reasons, the Progress M-27M spacecraft was sent into a higher orbit than intended. So the spacecraft was switched to a two-day flight pattern.